No Reason to Believe in the Physical Resurrection

(Debate for Thursday – revised text, borrowed HEAVILY from other sources)

 

Today I am going to tell you why I don’t buy the resurrection story. By that, I mean the tales in the Gospels, of Jesus physically rising again from the grave.

 

I will cover the most important reasons why I don’t buy the resurrection story.  It actually begins with a different tale.  In 520 AD an anonymous monk recorded the life of St. Genevieve, who had died only 10 years before that. In his account, he describes how, when she ordered a cursed tree cut down, monsters sprang from it and breathed a fatal stench on many men for hours, while she was sailing, eleven ships capsized, but at her prayers they were righted again spontaneously.  she cast out demons, calmed storms, created water and oil from nothing before astonished crowds, healed the blind and the lame, and several who stole from her actually went blind instead.

 

No one wrote anything to contradict or challenge these claims, and there were written very near the time the events supposedly happened– by a religious man whom we suppose regarded lying to be a sin.  Yet, do we believe any of it?  Not really, and we shouldn’t.

 

But, we should try to be more specific in our reasons, and not rely solely on our common sense impressions.  There are specific reasons to disbelieve the story of Genevieve, and they are the same reasons we have to doubt the gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus. The parallel is clear: the Gospels were written no sooner to the death of Jesus than the Genevieve account to her death. Like that account, the Gospels were also originally anonymous – the names now attached to them were added by speculation and oral tradition half a century after they were written.  Both contain fabulous miracles supposedly witnessed by numerous people.  Both are a sacred account of a holy person regarded as representing a moral and divine ideal.

 

Christian apologist Douglas Geivett has declared that the evidence for the physical resurrection of Jesus meets, and I quote, “the highest standards of historical inquiry” and “if one takes the historian’s own criteria for assessing the historicity of ancient events, the resurrection passes muster as a historically well-attested event of the ancient world.” As well attested, he says, as Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon in 49 B.C.

 

Let’s take a look at Caesar’s crossing.

First of all, we have Caesar’s own word on the subject.  The Civil War written by Caesar himself and one of his generals who was definitely an eye-witness.  In contrast we do not have anything written by Jesus and we do not know for certain the name of any authors of any of the accounts of his physical resurrection.

Second, we have many of Caesar’s enemies, including Cicero, a contemporary of the event, reporting the crossing; whereas we have not hostile or even neutral records of the resurrection until over a hundred years after the event.

Third, we have a number of inscriptions and coins produced soon after the Republican Civil War related to the Rubicon crossing; including mentions of battles and conscriptions, which form an almost continuous chain of evidence for Caesar’s entire march. On the other hand we have absolutely no physical evidence of any kind in the case of the resurrection.

Fourth, we have the story of the “Rubicon Crossing” in almost every historian of the period, including the most prominent scholars of the age.  Moreover, these scholars have a measure of proven reliability since a great many of their reports on other matter have been confirmed in material evidence and in other sources.  In addition, they all quote and name many different sources, showing a wide reading of the witnesses and documents, and they show a regular desire to critically examine claims for which there is any dispute.  If that wasn’t enough, all of them cite or quote sources which were written by witnesses, hostile and friendly of the crossing and its repercussions. Compare this with the resurrection: we have not even a single historian mentioning the event until the 3rd and 4th centuries, and then only by Christian historians.  And those few people who do mention it within a century of he event, none of them show any wide reading, never cite any other sources, show no sign of a skilled or critical examination of conflicting claims, have no other literature or scholarship to their credit that we can test for their skill and accuracy, and are completely unknown, and have an overtly declared bias toward persuasion and conversion.

Fifth, and most importantly: the history of Rome could not have proceeded as it did had Caesar not physically moved an army into Italy.  Even if Caesar could have somehow cultivated the mere belief that he had done this, he c

ould not have captured Rome or conscripted Italian men against Pompey’s forces in Greece. On the other hand, all that is needed to explain the rise of Christianity is a belief – a belief that the resurrection happened.  There is nothing that an actual resurrection would have cause that could not have been caused by a mere belief in that resurrection.  Thus, an actual resurrection is not necessary to explain all subsequent history, unlike Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon.

It should be clear that we have many reasons to believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, all of which are lacking in the case of the resurrection. In fact, when we compare all 5 points, we see that in 4 of the 5 proofs of an event’s historicity, the resurrection has NO evidence at all, and in the one proof that it does have, it has not the best, but the very worst kind of evidence — a handful of biased, uncritical, unscholarly, unknown, second-hand witnesses.  This is not a historically well-attested event, and it does NOT meet the highest standards of evidence.

 

But, reasons to be skeptical do not stop there.  We must consider the setting in which these stores spread. In today’s society, the claim or belief that another person is resurrected from the dead (and not in the near-death sense), is absolutely absurd.

To use some examples within the New Testament itself: Mark 6:14-17, “King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known.

Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” Others said, “He is Elijah.”  And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.” But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”  For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison.”

 

Which is echoed in Matthew and Luke as well.  Apparently, resurrection was a common explanation that was accepted at that time – even by Kings!  Herod apparently thought that Jesus was John, even though John had just recently died and the people must have known what he looked like.

 

This was an age where magic and ghosts were everywhere, and almost never doubted.  By the estimates of William Harris, author of Ancient Literacy, only 20% of the population could read anything at all, and fewer than 10% could read well, and far fewer still had any access to books.  The result was that the masses had no understanding of science or critical thought. They were neither equipped nor skilled nor even interested in challenging an inspiring story, especially a story like that of the Gospels: Utopian, wonderful, critical of upper class society — even more a story that, if believed, secured eternal life.  Who wouldn’t have bought a ticket to that lottery?  People back then based their judgment on the display of sincerity by the storyteller, by his ability to impress them with a show, and by the potential rewards his story had to offer.  At the same time, doubters didn’t care to waste the time or money debunking yet another crazy cult, of which there were hundreds then.  And so it should not surprise us that we have no writings by anyone hostile to Christianity until a century after it began – not even slanders or lies.  Clearly, no doubter cared to check or even challenge the story in print until it was too late to investigate the facts.  These are just some of the reasons why we cannot trust the extraordinary reports from that time without excellent evidence, which we do not have in the case of the physical resurrection of Jesus.

 

Even so, it is often said in objection that we can trust the Gospels more than we normally would because they were based on the reports of eye-witnesses of the event who were willing to die for their belief in the physical resurrection, for surely, no one would die for a lie.

Besides the fact that Matthew 28:17 claims that some of the eye-witnesses didn’t believe what they saw, which suggests the experience was not so convincing after all, there are two other key reasons why this argument sounds great in sermons, but doesn’t hold water under rational scrutiny.

First, it is based on nothing in the New Testament itself, or on any reliable evidence of any kind. None of the gospels or Epistles mention anyone dying for their belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus.

The only martyrdoms recorded in the New Testament are, first, the stoning of Stephen in Acts – but Stephen was not a witness, he was a later convert – so if anything, he died for hearsay alone. But even in acts the story has it that  he was not killed for what he believed, but by a mob whom he could not have escaped even if he had recanted.

Moreover, in his last breaths, we are told he says nothing about dying for any belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus, but mentions only his belief that Jesus was the messiah, and was at that moment in heaven.

 

<FONT face="Times N

ew Roman” size=3>The second and only other ‘martyr’ recorded in Acts is the execution of the Apostle James, but we are not told anything about why he was killed or whether recanting would have saved him, or what he thought he died for. Yet, that is the last record of any martyrdom we have until some unnamed Christians are burned for arson by Nero in 64 AD, but they were killed on the false charge of arson, not for refusing to deny belief in a physical resurrection.

There is no indication of any witness who was killed yet could have been saved by recanting their belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus.

 

The second point is that it is distinctly possible, if not definite, that the original Christians did not in fact believe in a physical resurrection, but that Jesus was taken up to heaven, and then the “risen Jesus” was seen in vision and dreams, just like the vision Stephen has before he dies, and which Paul has on the road to Damascus.  Visions of gods were not at all unusual, a cultural commonplace in those days, well documented by Robin Fox in his book, Pagans and Christians. But whatever their cause, if this is how Christianity actually started, it means that the resurrection story told in the Gospels, of a Jesus risen in the flesh, does not represent what the original disciples believed, but was made up generations later. So even if they did die for their beliefs, they did not die for the belief that Jesus was physically resurrected from the dead.

 

That the original Christians believed in a spiritual resurrection is hinted at in many strange features of the Gospel accounts of the appearances of Jesus after death, which may be survivals of an original mystical tradition later corrupted by the growing legend of a bodily resurrection; such as a Jesus that they do not recognize, or who vanishes into thin air.

 

Paul’s writings are the earliest record we have of Christianity, and it’s important to note that he never mentions Jesus having been resurrected in the flesh.  He never mentions any empty tomb, physical appearances, or the ascension of Jesus into heaven afterward. In Galatians 1, he tells us that he first met Jesus in a “revelation”, not in the flesh, and Acts gives several embellished accounts of this event that all clearly reflect not any tradition of a physical encounter, but a startling vision (a light and a voice, nothing more).

 

Then, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul reports that all the original eye-witnesses, Peter, James, the 12, and hundreds of others saw Jesus in essentially the same way Paul did, the only difference, he says, was that they saw it before him.  He then goes on to build an elaborate description of how the flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and how the resurrected body is a spiritual body, and all this seems god evidence that Paul did not believe in a physical resurrection of Jesus, but something fundamentally different.

 

Finally, when we examine the Gospel record closely, it becomes apparent that the physical nature of the resurrection was a growing legend, becoming more and more fabulous over time, a good sign that it wasn’t the original story.  Scholars hold that Mark was written first and then Matthew and Luke around the same time, and the latest written was John.

 

So we start with Mark: Many of you may know that the ending of Mark, everything after verse 16:8, does not actually exist in the earliest versions of that Gospel.  That means that his Gospel ended only with an empty tomb and a pronouncement by a mysterious young man that Jesus would be seen in Galilee — but nothing is said of how he would be seen. When we consider the original story, it supports the notion that the original belief was of a spiritual rather than a physical event.  The empty tomb for mark was likely meant to be a symbol, not a historical reality, it was not unusual in the ancient world for the bodies of heroes who became gods to vanish from this world: being deified entailed being taken up into heaven, as happened to men as diverse as Hercules and Apollonius of Tyana. 

 

Next, the Gospel of Matthew appears. This Gospel says there was a vast earthquake, and instead of a boy standing around besides an already-opened tomb, an angel, blazing like lightning descended from the sky and paralyzed the two guards that happened to be there, rolled away the stone single handedly before several witnesses and then announced that Jesus will appear in Galilee. Obviously we are seeing a clear case of legendary embellishments of the otherwise simple story in Mark. Then in Matthew a report is given where, contrary to the angel’s announcement, Jesus immediately meets the women that attended to his grave and repeats what the angel said. Matthew is careful to add a hint that this was a physical Jesus, having the women grovel and grab his feet as he speaks.

 

Then, Luke appears and suddenly what was a vague and perhaps symbolic allusion to ascension in Mark has now become a bodily appearance, complete with a dramatic reenactment of Peter rushing to the tomb and seeing the empty death shroud for himself.  As in Matthew, other details have grown. The one young man of Mark, which became a flying angel in Matthew, in this account h

as suddenly become 2 men, this time not merely in white, but in dazzling raiment.  And to make the new story even more suspicious as a doctrinal invention, Jesus goes out of his way to say that he is not a vision, and proves it by asking the Disciples to touch him, and then by eating a fish. And though Mark and Matthew said the visions would happen in Galilee, Luke changes the story, and places this particular experience in the more populous and prestigious Jerusalem.

 

Finally, along comes John.  Now the legend has grown full flower, and instead of one boy, or two men, or one angel, now we have two angels at the empty tomb.  And outdoing Luke in style, John has Jesus prove he is solid by showing his wounds, and breathing on people, and even obliging the Doubting Thomas by letting him put his fingers into the very wounds themselves.  And Jesus eats not only fish this time, but breaks bread as well.  Like Luke, the most grandiose appearances to the Disciples happen in Jerusalem, not Galilee as Mark originally claimed.

 

We have no primary sources on what was going on in the forty years of the Church between Paul in the year 58 and Clement of Rome in the year 95, and Paul tells us almost nothing about what happened in the beginning.  What I suspect happened is something like this: Jesus died, was buried, and then in a vision or dream appeared to one or more of his Disciples, convincing them he had ascended to heaven, escaping death before the End Times, and then what began in the simple story of Mark as a symbolic allusion to an ascended Christ soon to reveal himself in visions from heave, in time led some Christians to believe that the resurrection was physical and they heard or came up with increasingly elaborate stories proving themselves right.

 

Since religious trust was won in those days by the charisma of speakers and the audience’s subjective estimation of their sincerity, it would not be long before a charismatic man, who heard the embellished accounts, came into a position of power, inspiring complete faith from his congregation, who then sought to defend the story, and so began the transformation of the Christian idea of the resurrection from a spiritual concept to a physical one – naturally calling themselves the “true church” and attacking all rivals, as has so often happened in history.  Lending plausibility to this chain of events was the Jewish War between 66 and 70 AD, which ended with the complete destruction of the original Christian Church in Jerusalem, and much of the entire city.  It is likely that many if not all of the original believers still living were killed in this war, and with the loss of the central source of Christian authoricy and tradition, legends were ripe for the growing.  This would explain why later Christians were so in the dark about the history of their own Church between 58 and 95.  Exactly what happened we may never know.  However, it came to change, it seems more than likely that the first Christians, among them Paul, believed in a spiritual resurrection and not the resurrection story told in the Gospels.

 

So this is where we end up.  We have no trustworthy evidence of a physical resurrection, no reliable witnesses. It is among the most poorly attested of historical events. The earliest evidence, from the letters of Paul, does not appear to be of a physical resurrection, but a spiritual one. And we have at least one plausible reason available to us as to why and how the legend grew into something else.  Finally, the original accounts of a physical resurrection show obvious signs of legendary embellishment over time, and were written in an age of little education and even less science, a time overflowing with superstition and credulity. And, ultimately, the Gospels match perfectly the same genre of hagiography as that life of Genevieve with which I began. There the legends quickly arose, undoubted and unchallenged, of tree born monsters and righted ships and blinded thieves. In the Gospels, we get angels and earthquakes and a resurrection in the flesh. So we have to admit that neither is any more believable than the other.

 

No wise or compassionate God would leave us so poorly informed about something so important. If we have a message for someone that is urgently vital for their survival, and we have any compassion, that will compel us to communicate that message clearly and with every necessary proof – not ambiguously, not through unreliable intermediaries presenting no real evidence. Conversely, if we see something incredible, we do not attack or punish audiences who don’t believe us, we don’t’ even expect them to believe – unless and until we can present decisive evidence.  Any claim can be made about a drug, but people are rightly wary of swallowing anything that hasn’t been thoroughly tested and re-tested. Since I have no such evidence regarding the resurrection story, I’m not going to swallow it, and it would be cruel, even for a god, to expect otherwise of me. So I can reason rightly that a god of all humankind would not appear in one tiny backwater of the Earth, in a backward time, revealing himself to a tiny unknown few, and then expect the billions of the rest of us to take their word for it, and not even their word, but the word of some unnamed person many times removed. I don’t see any reason to buy the resurrection story found in the Gospels.